Data-driven attitude control law design for a variable-pitch quadrotor

In this paper, the problem of tuning a cascade attitude control system of a variable-pitch quadrotor UAV is tackled, adopting a fast data-driven procedure based on a modified Virtual Reference Feedback Tuning (VRFT) approach. The proposed method allows to tune both the inner and the outer loops by means of a single set of experimental data. More precisely, the pitch attitude degree of freedom of the vehicle is considered, operating the quadrotor indoor on a dedicated test bench. The achieved control performance is compared with the one obtained by applying a model-based structured H∞ synthesis approach to a black-box model of the pitch dynamics.